There are few examples where obesity is anything but bad for your health. Obesity—as measured by a body mass index (BMI) above 30—is associated with a significantly reduced lifespan and an increased likelihood to suffer from:

Given the overwhelming evidence for a causal—rather than just associative—link between obesity and at least some forms of poor health, public policies that promote exercise and healthy eating are likely to be highly beneficial to overweight individuals who pay heed. Less straightforward, could these policies also be cost-effective for healthier (or "thin") individuals through reduced public health spending and lower pooled insurance rates? In other words, do the health costs incurred by the obese create a negative externality borne by the rest of society?

Internationally, Bhutan is known for two things. First, they exiled more than 100,000 of their ethnic-Nepalese minority, whose religious and linguistic views made them unfit for citizenship, to live in refugee camps in Nepal--where they were also not wanted and subsequently resettled by third parties (more than 66,000 of them in the United States since the mid-2000s). Second, ironically, is the notion of measuring national success, not by gross domestic product, but by gross national happiness. Measuring wellbeing by contentment rather than income is certainly a noble goal in our gilded age, but how can it be appropriately measured?